Get hyped for Overwatch’s animated series

Overwatch gathers together a ragtag bunch of heroes and makes them battle it out – and Blizzard does have an explanation for why that’s happening.

Overwatch falls into the nascent “hero shooter” genre which also includes Battleborn and seems to draw on groundwork laid by MOBAs – lots of colourful characters with unique abilities.

The lore behind these kinds of games can be as expansive as the developers care to make it and Blizzard seems pretty committed to ensuring Overwatch has plenty of story elements for those who are keen. Sometime in spring, a series of animated shorts will begin to fill us in on the backstories of the most recognisable characters.

Update: The first episode is called Recall, and will launch on March 21 – at 12:00pm PDT, to be precise – on Xbox.com. Here’s Blizzard’s description:

“Recall” tells the story of Winston—a genetically engineered gorilla and brilliant scientist who longs for the days of heroism to return. In this episode, we explore Winston’s thoughts and memories as he wrestles with the decision to recall the agents of Overwatch, all while the forces of Talon stage an attack on his laboratory in the abandoned Watchpoint: Gibraltar.

The little teaser below is designed to get you hyped for that event, as well as give you a bit of a behind the scenes look at production of the series. It was originally aired at BlizzCon 2015, so you may have seen it before.

Overwatch will release in May for PC, PS4 and Xbox One. The animated shorts are part of a broader transmedia push including web comics, graphic novels and more.

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